AHS Freak Show Season Finale: Curtain Call

Well American Horror Story fans, we've reached the end of Freak Show, the fourth and perhaps most frustrating puzzling season so far. The final episode is, well, it's something I guess. Here's how it all went down...

There's No Business Like Show Business

Guess what? Not only is Dandy the new owner of the Cabinet of Curiosities, but he's also the new headliner...cuz...he knows show tunes. The remaining freak show family is not happy about the new management. In fact, they're completely creeped out by him. But alas, they've decided there's nowhere else they can go, so it has to be acceptable to be part of a show that passes from one murderous owner to the next. 

Anyway, Dandy is an asshole. He thinks the show isn't selling tickets because the freaks are too boring and we all know how Dandy feels about boring. He says a lot of dickish things to Paul, Penny, Amazon Eve and Ima, and they take it for a couple of minutes. Then suddenly (no seriously - they JUST got back from talking about how there's nowhere to go), they decide they can't work for Dandy. Eve punches Dandy in the face...and Paul tells him "you'll never be one of us." Now, why they just leave him on the floor and not kill him is beyond me. Instead they just head off to their tents and trailers to pack their things. 

Anything Goes

Dandy cleans himself up and begins calmly strutting through the camp grounds. Paul approaches him about their last week's pay and Dandy promptly shoots him in the head. Unlike the "mortal" knife wound he suffered earlier in the season, this shot kills him immediately. Penny is next, followed by, well, everyone who isn't a major name in the series. The only one who has a chance to put up a fight is Amazon Eve and for a second, I think she's got his ass...but then he kills her too. We're 19 minutes into the episode and I just want to turn it off and call it a night. How effing ridiculous to have a season of "freaks" struggling to live normal lives only to have an obnoxious, bratty, jackass do a mass shooting and blow 95% of them away. 

Desiree manages to escape (because she's Angela Bassett and the other famous people are pretty much gone) and Dot and Bette are still alive as well (because I DARE Ryan Murphy to actually kill off a Sarah Paulson character). Dandy has kept them tied up all this time because he wants them all to himself. 

Jimmy, forever being screwed, makes his way from the all purpose warehouse to the camp grounds. In my mind he's thinking: Hey, where is everybody? I know my mom, dad, and girlfriend are all dead, and my two friends Meep and Ma Petite were murdered too...and somehow Pepper is gone along with my hands...but where's everyone else? He calls for Elsa (man, he is way behind) and looks for her under the big top. Instead, he finds the dead bodies of Dandy's massacre. He drops to his knees and sobs. Desiree pops out from the shadows and comforts him, crying just as hard. 

Marry Me A Little 

When we next see Dot and Bette, they are walking down the aisle toward Dandy and a priest. Bette is super happy and Dot has an "I wish we'd had the surgery" look on her face. They marry and Dandy immediately starts talking about the wedding night. "A stallion deserves respect from all his mares." Oh good lord. Bette interrupts and tells Dandy she's planned a special wedding feast. She even has a french cook preparing all of Dandy's favorites. Since when does Bette know French cooks? Dandy says he's the luckiest man alive...Bette says she's the luckiest woman...and I'm hoping Dot will barf so I don't have to. No dice. 

Dandy and his brides sit on opposite sides of the dining room table and wait for their fancy meals to arrive. He sips champagne and talks about taking a safari honeymoon where they can make freak babies and skin cats. Yup. He doesn't realize the maid pouring is champagne has three breasts. He's too distracted to see that Desiree dropped a little something extra in his drink. He's completely shocked to realize he's been had! The twins didn't marry him willingly. "Did you honestly think we'd ever lay in your bed after you massacred our entire family?!?!" Dandy is confused. He believed every word Bette said about their love and life together. Dot replies "My sister is a truly a great actress. Bette Davis couldn't have given a more convincing performance." Well, tell that to the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Golden Globes who decided to nominate Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates only this season. 

Anyway, Bette pulls our Dandy's gun and shoots him in the arm so he stays in his seat. Jimmy arrives as the butler and tells Dandy that he's finally about to be part of a show....just as he passes out.  He wakes up in a glass case (ala Houdini's great water escape) and pleads to be let go. Dandy, who somehow doesn't seem  to have a bullet wound in his arm now, maintains that he's doing God's work and the freak show folks had to die. He also claims he's immortal. Heh. We'll see. Desiree tells Dandy about the morbidity museum and how several of their friends (or friend's body parts) ended up in glass jars there. Just before she unleashes the hose and fills the tank, Desiree says: "You might look like a motion picture dreamboat, but you are the biggest freak of them all." Despite Dandy's best efforts, he does not break the glass and drowns as Dot, Bette, Jimmy and Desiree watch the show with popcorn. THANK YOU. 

Hey Mr. Producer! 

Elsa has made it to Hollywood unscathed and she's trying like hell to get in to see the president of the World Broadcasting Network. The receptionist keeps brushing her off, but Elsa says she'll wait in the lobby for as long as it takes. When the day ends and the office is closing, Elsa is pissed. She never saw the president walk out and the receptionist says he left out the back door to avoid her. They exchange words, Elsa attacks her, and Michael Beck (the Junior VP of Casting) comes running out to see what the commotion is all about. Elsa is crying at this point and he extends his hand to her and shows her the first kindness she's seen since arriving in California. 

We fast forward to the future a bit where we see a news reel of Elsa receiving her star on the Walk of Fame. She's a three time Emmy winner now for her Friday night "Elsa Mars Variety Hour" and she's also a successful recording artist. She married Michael Beck, made him her manager, and became even more of a diva than she was at the freak show. Turns out Elsa wears the pants in the family and Michael even submits to her dominatrix routine. Neat. They also cheat on each other and have an overall miserable marriage. 

Elsa hasn't forgotten about Massimo though (I pretty much had). He pays her a visit and says he's been spending his time with the army in Nevada, building villages for them to blow up with atomic bombs. Side note - there are many viewers who believe season 5 will be in an area dealing with post-nuclear testing fallout and contamination. I think that's an awesome idea. Back to Massimo... he says Elsa has gotten everything she's ever wanted. But you know what? Elsa is bored. Those are her exact words. She's also lonely. "Eight years ago my best friend made me a birthday cake. That night when she and I sat over my candle, my birthday wish was plain and simple. I just wanted to be loved." Massimo says he loves her, Elsa suggests they run away together, and he says goodbye to her instead. Massimo reveals he has a disease in his lungs that has spread to his bones and he has one month to live. Wow. Really? That's how we're tying up his storyline?

Michael returns home with the head of the network, who has somehow gotten a hold of some 8MM films Elsa shot back in Germany. I'll bet the one where she gets her legs cut off is a real hoot. She denies being in any videos but The Los Angeles Times is ready to run a story which will also include her time as the head of a freak show. Luckily, he tells her, those people are all dead so there's less of a story to tell on that front. Elsa is shocked to hear this...and I have to hit the pause button. Shocked? She sold the show to a maniac before selling it to another maniac and she's surprised they didn't live happily ever after? Elsa is pretty much fired but is able to perform one last show...on Halloween. 

The Big Finish

As Elsa's Halloween special airs on TV, we see Desiree and Angus pass by a department store with a television in the window. They seem to be doing well and have some kids, so Desiree became a mother after all. Jimmy and the twins watch the show at home because they also got married and are about to have a baby. I guess that whole "I'm in love with someone else" thing flies out the door when that someone is literally sawed in half by a psychopath. Good for them.

The Halloween performance summons Edward Mordrake and his gang (including a mask-less Twisty) and he comes for Elsa. She welcomes him, all the while the camera is rolling, and Edward raises his knife. Twisty says "it hurts, but only for a moment." Edward stabs her in the heart and the audience sees Elsa fall...as she loses consciousness though, Edward tells her "your place is not with us." She ends up in some sort of alternate reality/nether world freak show where her departed family is going on about their business as normal. Canadian Dr. Evil  Ethel explains that Elsa doesn't have to pay for her sins...that she's been reunited with her loved ones and they play to a full house every night. They've been in desperate need of a headliner though, so Elsa reprises the role she started the season with and closes the show as a star.

That's a wrap folks. While I greatly enjoyed the return of characters like Twisty, Edward, and Ethel (even with that unforgivable accent), I spent most of the episode in WTF land. That's really how I spent the entire second half of the season. In summary...we had 13 episodes where we rooted for freaks to be understood, except for the ones we didn't. We had characters who sometimes sang modern day songs, and we had many "gotcha!" scenes that could have been used to tie up some plot lines or helped some of the ridiculous tangents make sense. We had guest stars that served little to no purpose (MVP award goes to NPH for his magic trick), and in the end....the majority of the freaks who felt they had nowhere else to go were massacred only to be joined my the "mother" who left them behind in the afterlife. Oh, and when did Edward Mordrake gain the ability to send people to places other than Hell? You can add that to the rest of this list of items that still has me scratching my head: 

-- The freaks had no problem ripping apart the body of the detective who called them freaks at the beginning of the season, or turning Stanley into a bird for what he did, OR using tar and feathers on Penny's dad, but Dandy gets a punch in the nose and a "where's my paycheck?" 

-- Stanley approaches Dell and says "you have to kill a freak or I'll share your secret," so Dell kills a freak instead of the guy who knows his secret.

--Nora spoke to her daughter on the phone at least once a week, but she had been gone several weeks before Precious Regina showed up, and many days before threatening to contact the police after showing up. AND she only contacted the police because Dandy admitting to killing her mother. 

-- Elsa loved Pepper deeply but felt the need to send her to live with the sister who had already abandoned her.  

-- I had thought Twisty had one of the most interesting background stories that was barely explored...but he was joined in the last couple of episodes by Massimo, who had a pretty badass revenge story that included Nazi officers and the future Dr. Arden, but it was glanced over. Let's just have Edward take Twisty right when his character could have had more depth, and Massimo? Eh, we'll just give him cancer because we're at episode 13 and he can't end up with Elsa.

-- A "talent agent" came to the freak show so early on in the season, but the delay in going to Hollywood didn't raise any eyebrows...nor did his explanation of Ethel's "suicidal" decapitation car crash. 

There's no official word yet on who will come back for season 5 or if Jessica Lange is really done with the show, but regardless of my feelings about Freak Show, Jessica Lange was amazing as Elsa Mars. The show could survive without her for a little while if Ryan Murphy retains actresses like Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates...but it just won't be the same without that special kind of crazy Ms. Lange brings with her each year. Though Freak Show is my least favorite of the 4 seasons, I absolutely still remain a huge AHS fan and will eagerly await the arrival of September when we'll meet up with some of these actors again. Will season 5 somehow tie into Murder House or Coven? Will favorites like Lily Rabe and Zachary Quinto return? Will there be an Area 51 type theme? I'm sure casting news and plot tidbits will trickle their way out soon. Til then, I will look forward to the return of The Walking Dead in a few short weeks. 

AHS Freak Show Episode 12: Show Stoppers

Wow. Just...wow. This episode threw me for a loop (in a good way) and somewhat redeemed the "meh" second half of the season. We have only one week left until the Freak Show finale, and I've been anxiously waiting for the blood bath to continue. Episode 12 gives us revenge, brutality, and a new connection between the American Horror Story seasons. Here's where we are with "Show Stoppers."

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

Stanley shows up to the big top to join everyone for dinner and a movie. Elsa is heading to Hollywood (for the millionth time) and the freaks are sending her out in style. She raises her glass to Chester, the new owner of the Cabinet of Curiosities, and creepy ass Chester thanks her while Marjorie insults her. Okay. Enough with the damn puppet. 

Elsa asks Chester to leave her to say goodbye to her monsters (paging Lady Gaga), and once Chester exits the tent...Elsa turns her attention to Richard/Stanley. She thanks him and says they will celebrate the next chapter in their lives with a feast and a movie. "Not The Sign of the Cross again," says one of the freaks. Ha! For those of you Season 2 lovers, that movie was Sister Jude's fave as well. Elsa has a different movie in mind though. She chooses Freaks, which is an awesome film I referenced in the season premiere post. Paul and Amazon Eve tell Stanley the premise of the movie...in a traveling circus, a trapeze artist marries a midget for his inheritance while planning to poison him and take his money. She gets drunk at a very strange dinner one night and reveals her intentions. The freaks take revenge on her and her co-conspirator during a dark rainy night. If you haven't seen the movie, seriously, you should. That revenge scene was brilliant way before its time. 

Stanley decides to skip the movie though...he has talent agent stuff to do. Elsa tells Stanley they have a present for him, so he sits back down as a wrapped box is brought to the table. He opens a human head...belonging to the director of the morbidity museum. There goes your paycheck buddy. Seems Desiree and Maggie did not return from their field trip to see Ma Petite's jar empty handed. Maggie pipes up and says she already revealed his identity and before Stanley can blink, he's been tied to the wheel of terror and the knives are flying. Should he worry? I mean, Paul's "mortal" wound only lasted an episode before he was miraculously better. Elsa nails him in the leg. They cut him down and he tells everyone that Elsa killed Ethel. A light bulb briefly goes on in some of the freaks' heads... do they now realize that none of that shit about Ethel's death made sense? No matter. Elsa tells Stanley to run, and he hobbles out of the tent with the freaks close behind him. 

Surprise! It's dark and rainy just like the Freaks movie. The "family" circles up around him with their various weapons...and the opening credits roll.

Later the freaks sit around the table reminiscing about how awesome Ethel was. Wait! Stanley said Elsa killed her. Wait! Ethel wasn't the type to kill herself. Wait! NONE OF THAT SHIT MADE SENSE TO BEGIN WITH. Congrats guys, it took you wayyyy longer than it should have to realize a suicide by car/tree/chain/decapitation sounded ridiculous. They decide it's time to do something about Elsa.

Did Somebody Say Empty Handed?

Jimmy has made it back to the show grounds and he's recovering in what I'm now calling the all purpose warehouse. Elsa tells him about Dell's demise and he doesn't take it well. No kidding. He's lost both of his parents and his hands in a very brief time frame...dude is allowed to be a little emotional. Jimmy says he'll never forgive Maggie, so clearly Maggie should tend to his bandages. She tells Jimmy she loves him and she wants a clean start. "I'm gonna make things right with them and with you." He essentially calls her a delusional bitch and I'm inclined to agree. Telling Desiree about Ma Petite WELL after the murder happened doesn't make her a hero. Now Ethel is dead because of her suspicions, Dell is dead because he's a moron and killed Ma Petite instead of Stanley, and Jimmy has stubs for hands because Stanley sold them. Maggie, you're kind of an asshole. 

Enter Massimo, the doctor who gave Elsa her fancy new legs (played by last season's Axeman, Danny Huston). Elsa was able to magically track him down and he arrives in Jupiter on incredibly short notice. She introduces him to Jimmy and they tell Jimmy all about Elsa's legs and back story. Massimo and Elsa were in love back then and Massimo nursed her back to heath, taught her how to walk again, and really saved her life in more ways than one. The two parted ways when Massimo went in search of the guys who deformed Elsa, as his need for revenge drove them apart. Massimo killed all but one - a psycho and soldier known as Hans Gruber...whoa! Hans Gruber ended up as Dr. Arden in Asylum. Craziness. Hans tortured Massimo for quite some time before a higher ranking officer set him free. While he is happy to be reunited with Elsa, his time with Gruber rendered him soulless and unable to love. Bummer. 

Jimmy consults with Massimo and realizes he has a chance to have "normal" hands...or something close to it. But when his fake hands are revealed, they are exact replicas of Jimmy's lobster claws. "They're perfect" he says to Massimo. 

Wanna See A Trick?

Chester's...um...liaisons with Dot and Bette continue and Marjorie is not happy. The twins are FINALLY creeped out by Marjorie "watching" from the night stand and Chester puts the puppet on the floor. When the twins leave, Marjorie rips Chester a new one for knocking her off the night stand. She says there's no way the twins can love him with him being a murderer and all. Chester maintains that Marjorie killed his wife and her lover. "That's impossible. I'm a doll." Cut to a flashback of Chester stabbing both women to death. Marjorie says the twins have to go.

This trick is a side-splitter. 

Dandy arrives in Dot and Bette's tent with some valuable information about their de-flowerer. Dot doesn't trust Dandy at all and she tosses the detective's file aside. The girls look over the information once Dandy leaves, and Dot instantly has doubts about Chester. She tells him they no longer want to be his assistant during his magic act. Chester is disappointed, saying he plans to "saw them in half," which has never been done before with a two-headed body. Maggie volunteers instead because she wants to be part of the show and she is reallllly trying to fit in at this point. Chester goes into total crazy mode. When Maggie steps into the box to rehearse, Chester sees his wife instead. He cuffs her feet so she's unable to bring her legs to the top half of the box. Maggie yells at him "I can't pull my feet through!" And then...Chester saws her in half!!! Oh. My. God. RIP Maggie. 

It takes a second for Chester to realize what he's done. He panics, flees the stage, and races back to his tent.  He gets into some weird puppet fight with Marjorie and kills her too...or something. I mean, she's a puppet. At the same time, Paul, Desiree and Amazon Eve pop their heads out to see the two halves of Maggie. I expect them to be a little more outraged, but Desiree says she had it coming. Paul asks what they should do now. "Steal her jewelry and bury the bitch." Ha! Oh how I wish we'd had more Desiree this season. 

You're Next

Amazon Eve breaks the news to Jimmy that Maggie's dead...and I really feel for the guy. On the plus side, she kind of sucked at dealing with his bandages. Good thing the doctor is there. Amazon Eve tells Jimmy that the group will be killing Elsa that night, because why not at this point? She's got some pretty nice jewelry as well. 

The twins warn Elsa and tell her she has to leave. "Your monsters are going to kill you." Elsa straps on her wooden legs and gets the hell out of there. The freaks arrive in an empty tent and they are pisssssed. Maybe you guys should have been a little more discrete with your plotting?

Elsa meets up with Dandy and offers him the Cabinet of Curiosities for a hefty price. Sure, Chester owns the place but he's effing crazy. Dandy doesn't even have to kill him to get him out of the way - the dude brings Marjorie's "body" to the police station and confesses to murdering her. I'm hoping he gets shipped off to the asylum with Pepper. 

Stuttering Stanley!

Dandy arrives at the show grounds and announces himself as the new owner, saying Elsa has left Jupiter to follow her dreams. Dandy says his own dream is to be in show business...and with the freak show his dreams have come true as well. As he steps up to the empty stage in the empty big top to take some bows, he hears a noise behind him in a crate/cage thing. For a second I think it's Meep...but it's actually a limbless (and I'm assuming tongueless) Stanley. That. Is awesome. Granted, it's totally a rip off from the Freaks movie revenge, but it's still pretty great to see Stanley suffer. 

We have one episode remaining in season 4 of American Horror Story and I'm guessing we will lose several more characters in that final hour. I'm glad the Cabinet of Curiosities crew finally got a clue about Ethel, and I'm completely fine with Maggie's demise. She played a pretty big role in the freak show breakdown and Desiree couldn't have said it better. Dandy's death has to be coming next week though, right? Right? I've been eager for it since his first episode. Will the twins survive? Will Jimmy's new wooden lobster hands give him the confidence he needs to lead the freaks out of Dandy's control? Will the fact that he's a fugitive wanted for murder be brought up again or will we glance over it? Is Chester really gone or will he return with some other weird ass gimmick? There's a lot to consider as the season draws to a close. Here's hoping the finale is as least as good as tonight's episode.

AHS Freak Show Episode 11: Magical Thinking

We are nearing the end of Freak Show and with only a few hours to go, there sure is a lot going on still. Episode 11 introduces yet another new character, eliminates another "freak," and overall does nothing to start to tie up any story lines. Here's where we are with "Magical Thinking."

Need A Hand?

Jimmy tells Stanley that he would be willing to sell one of his hands to raise the money to hire a lawyer. Cut to (literally) Jimmy waking up in a hospital bed with a stump on each arm. Dell finds him there, and he is devastated to learn that Stanley conned Jimmy as well. He feeds his son the lunch from the out of reach hospital tray and they talk about buying the freak show from Elsa. Dell tries to keep the situation light but ultimately knows that Jimmy is screwed. 

Elsa is packing her bags to finally head to Hollywood and Dell interrupts to tell her about Jimmy as well as her supposed talent agent. Elsa says Dell has to do everything he can to break Jimmy out of the hospital and bring him home. Amazon Eve offers to help, and together she and Dell divert the police transport heading back to the jail. They kill the cops and rescue Stumpy (I've decided that's his new name). 

How I Met Your New Owner

Bette has gone back to her mousy brown hair and after Jimmy's recent rejection, the girls apparently realized that they are eager to get laid. They are not having much luck finding a freak to get freaky with though. As luck would have it, a traveling chameleon salesman arrives at The Cabinet of Curiosities (hey there, Neil Patrick Harris) and it would seem the deep, torturing love Bette had for Jimmy has vanished. My that was quick. Chester (insert all jokes here) is a former soldier who boasts of a metal plate in his head and an impressive magician act. He traveled to Jupiter specifically to find the freak show. 

Chester auditions for Elsa with his silver rings and other gimmicks. Elsa cuts him off pretty quickly. "This is a freak show - not a magic show." Chester has one more trick up his sleeve though...or in his trunk anyway. He introduces her to his best friend "Marjorie," who happens to be a dummy. Creepy. Elsa is growing tired of Chester's desperate attempts to join the show, but when she realizes he is good with numbers, she allows him to stay and "warm up the crowd" if he agrees to keep the books as well. Marjorie, by the way, is like Wilson from Castaway. Chester has full on conversations and arguments with her as if she were real. 

The twins are thrilled (and horny) to hear that Chester is staying and when he presents them with a music box to thank them for his support, both girls agree that he is "the one." I mean, not the same "the one" that Jimmy was. Apparently there is more than one "the one." Anyway, Chester tells Bette and Dot that he found one of those illusion boxes that magicians use to saw women in half. Dot initially thinks he's talking about the separation surgery the twins no longer want, but then Chester explains that this is all part of the act. He wants them to be his assistants and he tells them he is taken with their beauty....then they totally get it on....while he also holds on to Marjorie. Gross. I'm never going to be able to unsee NPH's naked butt on top of a two headed Sarah Paulson. Never. 

After the coupling (tripling?) is over, Paul the Seal Boy arrives in Chester's tent looking all sorts of pissed off. Apparently the freaks had all pulled their money together to buy the show from Elsa...but she decided to sell it to Chester for $1000. I wasn't aware that Chester had that kind of money on him. Maybe he's been hiding more than his hand up Marjorie's skirt. She says "I can spot a good business deal in the dark with a blindfold on." I'd argue that she and many characters on this show have spent the majority of the season in the dark with a blindfold on. Regardless, Chester informs Elsa that Marjorie will be taking over Elsa's tent because she's going to be the headliner. He goes back to his abode to tell Marjorie the good news...but she has disappeared from her box. This is just weird. 

Private Dicks

Dandy has hired detective Colquitt, fresh from burying Precious Regina's body I assume, to spy on the twins and boy does he have some photos to share. Dandy asks if the scene was romantic because he wants to know if Bette and Dot are in love with Chester. The detective doesn't know and doesn't care. Of course...Dandy cries. 

Colquitt is pulling double duty though as the bodies of Jimmy's two guards have been found. He arrives at the camp ground with a bunch of cars and sirens to search for Jimmy. Elsa plays it cool but Chester runs out in a panic. "You have to put out an APB immediately. My Marjorie has been abducted!" No one cares dude. While he looks for his creepy ass puppet, Dandy appears near the carousel. He says Marjorie came to him because she's angry at Chester and what he did with the twins. Chester says she shouldn't jealous because this time is different...these girls want him to join them. Evidently, Chester is also a murderous psycho. His wife had a female lover who used to let him watch (with Marjorie of course). When the lover hid Marjorie, the two women suddenly ended up bludgeoned to death...with Chester saying Marjorie did it. He tells Dandy "I tried to stop her, but it was too late." Chester and Marjorie are reunited in the big tent, with a human version of Marjorie (played by Jamie Brewer) telling Chester that he needs to saw the twins in half. 

The episode ends with Dell arriving home to find Desiree sitting in the dark with a gun. She calls him a murderer, but he thinks she's talking about the cops. She's disgusted. "You killed one of your own." He admits to smothering Ma Petite just in time for a bullet to enter his head. Elsa had fired the shot after Maggie showed her Ma Petite's jar. 

So to sum this episode up, Chester is clearly batshit crazy, but hey - he's good with numbers so he's more trustworthy than anyone in the "family." Elsa sells him the freak show with no hesitation. Oh, and she's packing for Hollywood and selling the freak show, but her talent agent is a scam artist who took Jimmy's hands....but she's still packing for Hollywood and selling the freak show. Dot and Bette had put their hearts and souls into Dot's overwhelming love for Jimmy...so much so that they gave all of their savings to Maggie to try to get him out of jail. Things change soooo quickly. Apparently a dude with a metal plate in his head who needs a puppet on his hand to have sex and is eager to do the "saw a women in half" trick is the next logical step when Lobster Boy turns you down. The only thing that made any kind of sense in this episode is Elsa getting revenge on Dell for Ma Petite's death....and those were the very last seconds of the hour. Maybe next week Elsa will peace out and Marjorie will wipe everyone else out...and end up in the basement of the Murder House in season 1. Magical thinking?

AHS Freak Show Episode 10: Orphans

Freak Show gives us a bit of a Dandy break (thank you) in this episode, and we are instead treated to Pepper's background and how she ended up at the Briarcliff Asylum from season 2. As those two worlds merge together, a phenomenal character from Asylum visits season 4, a Coven actress joins Freak Show as a character from Pepper's past, and Elsa just continues to blow my mind. Here's where we are with "Orphans."

Whatta Man

The episode opens with the death of Salty, whose name I didn't know until now...in my brain he was just the male version of Pepper, so I guess "Salty" isn't a far reach. Anyway, he has been Pepper's companion for quite some time and she's not ready to let him go. Literally. Salty's body is starting to cause an odor throughout the camp and Elsa has to step in. She tells us that most "pinheads" die before they turn 40 and Salty died in his sleep most likely from a stroke. Elsa feels terrible for Pepper and she's worried about the state of everyone left in the freak show.

Enter slimy ass Stanley to tell Elsa she shouldn't be stressing herself out. She's had it with him (haven't we all?) and asks him to leave. He whips out... a letter... from a network executive asking for a meeting in three weeks. In the meantime all Elsa has to do is rest. She buys it immediately and Stanley has bought himself more time to kidnap and kill the freaks. Groan. And in the meantime, he offers to "take care" of Salty's burial. We see him chop off Salty's head with an ax...and Salty joins Ma Petite at the morbidity museum.

None Of Your Business
Maggie/Esmeralda looks longingly at a picture of Lobster Boy when Desiree and Theo Angus show up to have their fortune read. Maggie says she sees them starting over somewhere out west in a small house with a white picket fence and so on...and then she says they will end up miserable and hating each other because that's what always happens. They get very angry and leave her tent quickly.

Later in the evening Desiree finds Maggie by the carousel and calls her on her bullshit. Maggie comes clean about who she really is. She tells Desiree that Stanley is not a talent scout - he's a con man who took her in when she was just a young thief trying to survive. When Desiree asks what kind of con they are trying to pull off at the freak show, Maggie lies and says they steal from the audience members. Desiree calls bullshit AGAIN and Maggie walks back to her tent.

Bette and Dot are waiting for her there and offer to give Maggie all of the money they've saved for their surgery to hire a lawyer for Jimmy. Maggie goes into bitch mode and pisses the girls off. Dot throws the money at her and says "you do right by Jimmy" before leaving the tent.

Maggie gets her shit together and decides she wants to do the right thing. She takes Desiree to the morbidity museum to see the display there, and to their surprise, not only are Ma Peitite and Salty featured...Jimmy's hands are there as well. Turns out Stanley visited Jimmy in jail and told him he has connections with a hot shot lawyer who would take Jimmy's case. The catch is - Jimmy would need to come up with some money to pay the retainer. Jimmy says he doesn't have anything of value but Stanley disagrees. He suggests Jimmy sell his hands.

This Dance A'int For Everybody
Desiree comforts Pepper, spending time with her and reading her bedtime stories. Dell interrupts one of the books to try to reconcile with his wife, who shuts him down pretty quickly. Desiree says they both deserve a shot at happiness and she can't make him happy. Truly happy. I'm guessing she's referring her not so ding-a-ling. Dell walks away dejected and Pepper tears up her tent when Desiree leaves.

Desiree finds herself drinking Schnapps with Elsa as Elsa explains where Pepper came from. "She's known nothing but abandonment her entire life." Oh jeez. That's never a good start to a story. Elsa had started her Cabinet of Curiosities before WWII. She was tired of being with the gypsies and circuses and came up with the idea of putting together her own freak show. The audience "would come for the freaks...but stay for the star."  While trying to collect performers, Elsa found Pepper in an orphanage. Pepper never knew her father and her mother had died. Her sister could not handle the responsibility of caring for Pepper, and the orphanage took her in even though she was an adult....because she had the mind of a child. Pepper left the orphanage with Elsa and became the first member of the freak show family.

Pepper became lonely as Elsa continued to add performers to the show, but then one day a maharajah arrived with Ma Petite in his entourage. Elsa was able to snag Ma Petite for a few cases of Dr. Pepper (see what they did there?) and Ma Petite became fast friends with the lonely pinhead. Pepper still wasn't 100% happy with her home though and Elsa made it her mission to find Pepper a mate. Finally a home for wayward boys in Cincinnati contacted her and Salty came to live in The Cabinet of Curiosities. It was love at first sight! Salty, Pepper, and Ma Petite were their own little family with Elsa as their fairy godmother.

Heaven Or Hell
Desiree suggests that they find Pepper's sister. She says Pepper is not the handful she was when she was at the orphanage. Elsa agrees, saying it might be time for their little angel to return home. Really? The best thing to do for Pepper is to remove her from the place where she's been the most happy and reunite her with someone who wants nothing to do with her? Apparently. Elsa packs Pepper up and takes her to her sister Rita (played by season 3's Mare Winningham) and I have a pit in my stomach. Rita explains that she didn't want Pepper because she was worried she wouldn't be able to get married and have a family with Pepper around. She says that she did marry but was not able to have children. She's worried about how her husband will react to Pepper...but Elsa leaves her there anyway.

Welcome back, sister. 

The next time we see Rita, she's sitting in SISTER MARY EUNICE's office at Briarcliff Asylum in 1962. Helloooo Lily Rabe! I've missed you so. This season just hasn't been the same without you. Anyway, Rita tells the nun that after Pepper came to live with her, she and her husband Larry unexpectedly had a baby (unexpectedly mostly because she's pushing 50) and they named him Lucas. Unfortunately, Lucas was deformed and Rita and Larry had no use for two oddities in their house. They came up with a plan to kill the baby and pin it on Pepper. So Rita plays the loving, grieving mother as she speaks to Sister Mary Eunice while we see what really happened play out on screen. It's brutal and very disturbing.

Pepper is committed to Briarcliff and Sister Mary Eunice takes her on as a special project. The young nun sees "redemption" in Pepper right away and gives her special jobs to do around the asylum. She tells Pepper that maybe someday she'll be able to work in the bakery, but for now, the library needs some TLC. While tidying up the library shelves, Pepper comes across a LIFE magazine featuring Elsa on the cover as a big TV star. Pepper cries, kisses her fingers with a smile, then taps the magazine.

"Orphans" ends there and though the content was heartbreaking, it was a really good episode. I doubt we'll see anything more from Pepper this season, but anyone who watches AHS Asylum will know what happens to her next. Even though I knew Lily Rabe would reprise her nun role in Freak Show, I still shouted "yaaaaaaay!" when I saw her on screen. Not only was she back as one of the best characters the show has ever had, that character was featured in her purest form tonight. I loved every second of it. The episode did not help me figure out how the other two seasons of AHS are related, but I will continue to rack my brain on that one. Perhaps we'll receive more clues in the coming episodes.  For now though, we know Elsa does make it out to Hollywood to become a TV star. How she does it and who else gets hurt along the way remains to be seen. Happy New Year?